Thursday, February 07, 2008

breathe: underwater

"Geaaarrrgghhh!" as I surfaced from a meek 3 feet of water, gasping for air.

Which was rather ironic actually, because the mouth-piece on the regulator was supposed to provide me with the ability to breathe underwater.

"I just cannot clear my damn mask," I whined pathetically as the instructor too surfaced from the water as I wasn't showing any signs of going back in.

The pounding in my head was getting louder by the second, and as the boyfriend emerged from underwater with a glee on his face, I knew he'd done it. Clear a partially flooded mask while underwater. I felt a tinge of envy.

And that little poke of envy pushed me (yes, I'm trying to ignore headache) and I declared I'll give it another go.

I donned the mask on, stuck the regulator back in my mouth and went underwater. Using my fingers, I peeled a little bit of the mask off and water gushed in and I stopped when the level was halfway. Took a deep breath of air from the regulator, tilted my head backwards and tried to empty the water from the mask by exhaling through my nose, and almost instantaneously, surfaced from underwater again.

The pounding in my head was unbearable, my eyes grew dim (eh, which song is this from ah?) and I got out from the pool.

Sitting on the bench, I watched the boyfriend and the instructor proceed with the next set of techniques. I refuse to believe that I was fucking up my very first confined water dive. After a coupla minutes, and proper breathing on good old land, the headache subsided. Turns out I was hyperventilating; oxygen didn't reach my brain.

That was that.

I went into the water and tried it again, and managed to clear my mask alright. In the second pool dive the week after, I was so into mask clearing I kept having a go at it the moment my mask showed the slightest sign of fogging up.

Scuba lessons have been WAY fun.


Fin pivot was also damn cekap. It basically is about controlling your inhale and exhale of air, enabling your body to hover upwards and downwards with the tip of the fins touching the ground.

I really do not know how else to express how awesome scuba diving is except to say that I know that when I do my first open water dive come April, that I will not look back, and picking up scuba diving will be one of the best decisions I've made in my life.

-------------------------

Gong Xi Fatt Chai to all :) Money come, bad luck go.

Posted by Doreen at 3:46 pm